The U.S. Supreme Court remained silent Monday on the fate of same-sex marriage cases in California and nationwide. The court put the cases over until Friday, when the justices hold their next conference to consider pending appeals.

An appeal by sponsors of California's Proposition 8 had been on the agenda for the court's conference last Friday, along with appeals by House Republicans defending a federal law that denies spousal benefits to same-sex couples legally married under their state laws. But the court announced no action on either Friday, when it disclosed the cases it had agreed to review, or Monday, when it listed the appeals that had been denied.

Video: SCOTUS considers hearing Defense of Marriage Act

The U.S. Supreme Court justices met behind closed doors to decide whether to hear arguments in the California same-sex marriage case. Chip Reid reports the court also considered jumping into the raging debate over the Defense of Marriage Act.

Media: San Francisco Chronicle

A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled in February that Prop. 8, the 2008 initiative that amended the state Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, was unconstitutional.

The court stopped short of deciding whether the U.S. Constitution requires states to legalize same-sex marriage, and instead ruled that Prop. 8 had discriminated against a historically persecuted minority by revoking marital rights that the state Supreme Court had granted less than six months earlier. The appellate panel said a trial in 2010 had shown no evidence that prohibiting same-sex marriage would benefit either opposite-sex couples or the institution of marriage, and the court concluded that Prop. 8 was rooted in moral disapproval of gays and lesbians.

Prop. 8 has remained in force while its backers appeal to the Supreme Court. If the court denies review, it would clear the way for same-sex couples to marry in California.

Other federal courts, including two Bay Area judges, have also declared unconstitutional the 1996 federal law known as the Defense of Marriage Act, which withheld joint tax filing, Social Security survivor payments and other benefits from married same-sex couples.

The Supreme Court is likely to grant a hearing in at least one of those cases for the term that ends next June.